July 25, July 28, August 16, September 2, and September 8, 2025.
Over the course of five days, I walked through Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, and captured what I encountered there in 698 photographs.
At the heart of this work are the afternoon, sunset, and nighttime views of the Expo as seen from the Grand Ring, which can without exaggeration be called one of the greatest architectural achievements in human history.
Although these scenes were photographed from the same Grand Ring, the color of the sky, the angle of the light, the shape of the clouds, the expression of the sea, and the people walking through the Expo changed from moment to moment.
The Expo illuminated by the powerful light of the afternoon.
The pavilions gradually sinking into deeper shadow beneath the evening sky.
The Expo transformed into an entirely different world as countless lights appear in the night.
Then an immense and searing sunset, resembling the fireball of an atomic bomb, spreads across the entire Expo site.
The sky, the sea, the architecture, and the people become one within that overwhelming light.
This is not merely a sunset.
It is a monumental vision in which nature, architecture, and humanity encounter one another in a moment that will never be repeated.
I arranged the 698 photographs taken over these five days in accordance with the development of each movement of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, “From the New World.”
The music is performed by the Vienna Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan.
The complete film runs for just over 46 minutes.
This is not merely a succession of photographs, nor is it simply a visual record of the Expo.
It is a work of time, light, and space created by 698 photographs, Dvořák, Karajan, the Vienna Philharmonic, and Sou Fujimoto’s Grand Ring.
At the center of this work stands the Grand Ring of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, created by the architect Sou Fujimoto.
It is no exaggeration to call the Grand Ring one of the greatest architectural achievements in human history.
The name of Sou Fujimoto, the individual genius behind its creation, cannot be omitted from any account of this extraordinary structure.
I have long held Sou Fujimoto in the highest esteem and praised his exceptional talent.
The Grand Ring is the architectural embodiment of an inspiration born within the genius of Sou Fujimoto, brought into physical reality through Japan’s centuries-old tradition of wooden architecture and the intelligence, technological mastery, aesthetic sensibility, and extraordinary precision of the Japanese people.
It is not merely an immense walkway or a facility designed to provide shelter from the rain and sun.
It is a monumental work of art born from the union of Japanese tradition, modern architectural technology, and Sou Fujimoto’s profoundly original vision.
Within its immense circle, it embraces the pavilions of nations from throughout the world and connects different countries, cultures, religions, and ideas beneath a single sky.
It expresses coexistence instead of division and harmony instead of confrontation, not through slogans or abstract ideals, but through architecture itself.
Walking on the Ring, one sees the sky, the sea, and the entire Expo site unfold as one immense landscape.
Standing beneath it, one is overwhelmed by its vast structure of interlocking timber and by the intelligence, technology, and aesthetic sensibility of the Japanese people.
A structure of such immense scale and beauty, yet one that embraces human beings so gently, could be realized precisely because it was created in Japan.
Indeed, representatives and professionals from other countries involved in the Expo expressed their admiration, recognizing that this was an architectural achievement that could have been realized only in Japan.
Only through the union of Sou Fujimoto’s inspired genius, Japan’s architectural traditions, and the technological and construction capabilities of the Japanese people could the Grand Ring have become a physical reality.
The Grand Ring is more than the symbol of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.
It is one of the summits of civilization presented to the world by Sou Fujimoto and Japan.
Karajan’s monumental conception and the incomparable beauty of the Vienna Philharmonic’s strings transform every image.
The lower strings rise as though from the depths of the earth.
The brass opens the heavens.
The woodwinds sing of a distant homeland.
Every sound gives breath, movement, and life to photographs that should, by their nature, remain still.
From the first movement to the finale, scenes photographed over five days appear alternately across time as the character of the music changes.
Different dates, different kinds of light, and different passages of time meet, separate, and meet again within Dvořák’s music.
The Grand Ring receives the afternoon light, burns beneath the setting sun, and becomes a circle of light within the darkness of night.
As each movement unfolds, this immense structure reveals an entirely different expression.
What Dvořák heard in America, the “New World,” was not merely the excitement of an unfamiliar land.
He heard longing for home, human solitude, hope for a new age, and the immeasurable breadth and beauty of the world itself.
More than 130 years later, that music, reborn through Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic, encounters Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.
Cultures, technologies, architecture, and ideas from countries throughout the world gathered at the Expo.
People walk through that immense space.
Light moves across monumental architecture.
The future is reflected in the sky and sea.
And Sou Fujimoto’s Grand Ring embraces everything within one great circle.
Through the magnificent sound of “From the New World,” these scenes transcend the record of a single day and become images of the present and future of Japan and the world.
A photograph arrests a single moment.
Music carries that moment into eternity.
After the final sound of “From the New World” disappears, the photographs continue.
The final section enters a world of photographs alone.
In the silence that remains after Karajan and the Vienna Philharmonic have gone, the photographs themselves begin to speak.
No explanation and no words are necessary.
Only the scenes I witnessed and photographed during those five days remain.
When the final photograph disappears, the world created by the music and images passes into the memory of the viewer.
For those who visited the Expo, this work offers 46 minutes in which to recover the light and atmosphere of those days.
For those who could not be there, it offers 46 minutes in which to walk through Expo 2025 by means of 698 photographs and “From the New World.”
For people throughout the world, it offers 46 minutes in which to witness the Grand Ring created by Japan and the afternoon, sunset, and nighttime views of Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai.
I sincerely hope that this monumental photographic work will be seen by as many people throughout the world as possible.
When the Vienna Philharmonic’s final sound returns to silence and the final photograph disappears from the screen, one thought will surely remain.
This world is still beautiful.
And Japan still possesses the power to create a new world worthy of human history, just as Sou Fujimoto created the Grand Ring.
Photographed: July 25, July 28, August 16, September 2, and September 8, 2025
Location: Expo 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan
Photographs: 698
Running time: Just over 46 minutes
Music: Antonín Dvořák — Symphony No. 9 in E Minor, Op. 95, “From the New World”
Conductor: Herbert von Karajan
Orchestra: Vienna Philharmonic
